Darklight Pirates
Chapter Sixteen

“The last of the external sensors blacked out, sir.” Bridget Sullivan shifted uneasily in the captain’s chair, her haptic-gloved hands moving rapidly through the layers of virtual controls in her HUD almost as quickly as she blinked to activate different sensors and systems. She sank back, shook her head and dislodged the control helmet that connected her with the ship’s computer. After putting it into its cradle, she stripped off the thin haptic gloves and said with a note of panic in her voice, “The destroyers have to be moving in on us, and we can’t see them.”

“Stay calm,” Donal said softly. He wanted the new captain to remain in command and not surrender so easily. She was the best of the bridge crew who had survived, but panic now would spread like nuclear fire throughout the skeleton crew. That guaranteed the Babylonian ships would laser them into cosmic dust.

“Maintaining, sir. Sorry.”

“Is there any way to scrape that gunk off our hull? For even a few minutes?”

“I’ve never seen anything like it, sir. The swarm coated us, spread and then thickened until it is as hard as 304 stainless steel. It has to be specially fabricated to block the entire electromagnetic spectrum. No signal out or in through it.”

“If we fire our laser cannon trying to burn it off, the ships would take that as an attack.”

“The turrets can’t mechanically aim down that low, sir, as a safety measure to keep from drilling a hole in our own hull should a crew die or the aiming electronics goes out during combat.”

“I should have known that,” Donal said.

“Can we simply light the engines and get out of the immediate area?” Cletus came up with Leanne trailing close behind him. “It’s dangerous but letting the Babylonians blow us out of space is worse.”

“They think we are pirates.” Leanne stood immediately behind the captain’s chair, looking over the HUD as Sullivan flipped from layer to layer, getting a fuller picture of their dilemma but making no effort to change the status quo. “We do not respond to their hail, and no markings are visible on the hull.”

“I can plot a trajectory away from the ships, but that will be dangerous for all of us. Hitting one of the ships is a small probability, but the greater is being identified as a fleeing pirate ship.”

“Jet us a ways off, Captain.”

Donal turned from Sullivan and motioned to Cletus. Leanne remained close enough to overhear but not intrude. His mind raced, and every scheme he came up with lacked much chance of working. Why hadn’t he discovered this swarm in the reports of High Guard research expenses? It must have been disguised in some other apportionment.

“Do you know anything about this weapon, Cletus?” His son shook his head. Cletus had only been Commander in Chief Armed Forces for a few months, not enough time to ferret out every dark secret that his predecessor might have held closely.

“Nothing,” Cletus said. His son glanced toward Leanne, who spoke up immediately.

“Our only chance is to destroy the nanobots and the blanket they’ve laid down blinding the sensors.” Leanne wore an intense expression that gave Donal an inkling of hope. She was not the kind to surrender easily and had schooled in dealing with such unknown battle problems. “The exoskeletons have been repaired. Cletus and I are trained in the use. We can use handheld laser welders to evaporate the swarm.”

“Why welders? Why not the weapons on the exos?” Cletus turned to his father. “Whatever we do has to be done fast.”

“The Shillelagh is helpless. Trying to fire through the swam over the laser cannons might doom us.” If Donal had suggested a course of development for the swarm, blinding the enemy ship was useful but causing a backfire from a turret would be more useful. Let the enemy ship destroy itself if it did not surrender.

“The ship is under way, 10 percent nominal power,” Sullivan said. “I don’t know where we’re going since the position after we Dropped hadn’t been calculated.”

“Keep a low acceleration.” Donal motioned to his son and Leanne to get out onto the hull and do what they could. “Run a foptic cable through the airlock so you can stay in contact as you work. And be careful. The swarm will coat the exos, too.”

“Yes, sir.” Cletus and his Far Kingdom shadow left the bridge. Donal sank to a chair behind Sullivan and put on the auxiliary helmet. It was worse than he expected. Circuit after circuit went dead. The swarm worked its way over their sensors--then edged down into the ship along the optical and electronic conduits. Given enough time, the Shillelagh would be a powerless, cold ghost ship.

#

“The external connector for the fiber optics lead is covered with what looks like black slime.” Cletus reached out to wipe it away. Leanne stopped him.

“If it gets on the exo, you’ll be blinded, too. It is designed to spread on whatever surface it touches.”

“Is the welding laser going to work, then?” Cletus hefted the tool as if it massed out no more than a screwdriver. The exo gave him strength enough to move mountains, yet the encroaching swarm threatened to render him as helpless as the dreadnought.

“The swarm is expanding, moving toward us.” Leanne floated to a spot beside Cletus in the airlock and lifted her laser welder. She passed her hand over the top, took off the safety and then began to trigger short blasts parallel to the hull.

Cletus saw her technique and duplicated it. As he got a feel for the welder, he moved the beam lower until it washed just along the hull. The black slime evaporated like dew in the morning sun. Emboldened, he stepped out, magnetically attached himself to the hull and widened the beam into a fan shape. This worked less well than a tighter beam. He played with it until he scoured the greatest area effectively.

“Work toward the midships sensors.”

The equator of the ship was festooned with sensors of every variety necessary for navigation in StringSpace and regular spacetime. Cleaning off even a few of those instruments gave a chance for contacting the Babylonian ships and convincing them they weren’t pirates. Cletus worked methodically toward the equator while Leanne went the other direction, sidling toward the Shillelagh’s prow to blast clean a few of the laser turrets.

Cletus found himself working without thinking, his body automatically responding to the thick layer coating the hull. His mind drifted away, back to Ballymore and the loss of his family. He saw no way that his mother and sisters survived the horrific battle that had erupted when the warbots set down in the middle of the military post. He replayed the fight in his head, how the initial attack had been successful but increasingly deadly as the Low Guard responded. He tried not to think of the soldiers he and Leanne had killed--those were his brothers and sisters, the citizens he had been sworn to defend. If the warbots had been successful, only a few soldiers might have died, but the resistance had hardened, and by the time the tanks rolled into the compound, the body count had climbed to unacceptable levels.

Those deaths included his family. How this had happened and who was responsible tore at him. Without doubt, Aaron Riddle had a hand in the coup for the soldiers to have been coordinated so well. The animosity between them had grown intolerable after Cletus was sworn in as Commander in Chief Armed Forces when Riddle had expected the appointment. Cletus was sorry that he hadn’t replaced Riddle immediately with another officer, but the idea of a palace revolt had never occurred to him. He smiled wryly. It had never occurred to his father, either.

Weir and Riddle. Who else? There had to be many more responsible for the overthrow of the government. Cletus had heard his father and Bella discussing the control algorithm and how it had been enmeshed so completely in the master computer that anyone hacking in would replace it impossible to take control of the country. Weir had his expertise as Chief Operations Officer but never had Cletus thought it matched Bella’s. It certainly fell far short of his father’s skill linking his brain into the neural net that kept the lifeblood of Burran flowing.

He swept away more of the swarm. Every place the intense coherent light beam touched the black coating, only a shiny hull was left behind. He sometimes carelessly aimed too low and burned away part of the dreadnought’s hull. It was thick, and such minor damage meant nothing if he freed the sensors and once more allowed the Shillelagh to function properly.

“How’re you doing?” The loud crackle in his helmet almost obscured Leanne’s words.

“I’ll be around the circumference before you get more than a couple of the turrets cleaned.”

“Is that a bet?”

Cletus stopped working for a moment when he heard the tone in her voice.

“What’s the bet? What does the loser forfeit?”

“It is possible for a bet where we both win. If you and I were to--”

Leanne’s signal died abruptly. Cletus tried to spin about, but with magnetic latching, he only twisted his knees. Wincing, he unlocked one foot, turned and secured it. He repeated the order with his other foot to face Leanne. She was fifty meters away and peering straight away from the ship. Cletus started to radio her again, then switched to a narrow band lasercom.

“How’d the gunboats get so close?” He began shuffling toward her. Continuing to scrub the sensors made more sense. Get equipment back online and Sullivan and the crew could defend the ship better. But Cletus hardly considered that.

Leanne was in danger.

Not a kilometer above her the Babylonian ship spun slowly to get into position to match airlocks.

“Can you use the welder as a weapon?” Cletus moved faster. A tiny pop in his ears alerted him to Leanne using a microburst transmission. He switched modes and let the comlink decipher the burst for him. “Don’t do it! You can’t board!”

He knew it took a few seconds for his warning to encode and return via microburst. This was almost foolproof communication, and the Babylonians couldn’t successfully intercept it.

“They don’t see me. You, either,” Leanne sent. “We can board them. They must think we’re a derelict.”

“Don’t go without me. That’s an order.” Cletus doubted she would obey, but it surprised him that she continued to sweep away the swarm blocking the turrets, even when the gunboat pulled closer. Magnetic grapples drew it closer to the dreadnought.

“I’ve told the captain not to fire. That would completely destroy the Babylonian. We can board and seize it.”

“Where’s the other ship?” Cletus reached Leanne’s side and looked around. All he saw was the bulk of the gunboat coming ever closer on its magnetic lines. “We can’t take both of them ourselves.”

“Why not? You’re afraid. That means you think we won’t succeed. Surprise is our best weapon until we clean off the Shillelagh.”

Cletus reached out and magnetically locked with the other exo. The gunboat almost touched the Shillelagh’s hull when they cut loose, twisted about and landed feet down on the hull. Cletus got a better view of his own ship from here. The entire expanse of the swarm stretched beyond his short horizon, dark and ugly. The nanos continued to spread. For such a growth it had to be leeching material from the ship’s hull.

“The Babylonians will infect their own ship if they brush.”

Even as the possibility left his lips, the two ships kissed gently, then rebounded. The gunboat corrected slightly and once more touched airlocks. A slender docking tube stretched out and then the ships drifted apart a few meters. He pointed with his welding laser. Leanne already understood the best way for the pair of them to take the gunboat. As the docking tube billowed slightly with internal pressure, Cletus raked his welder along its middle. The sudden gust into space turned to feathery, frozen tendrils of moisture and atmosphere. When the first rush of air passed, he slid through the hole to face a startled woman in what might have been an exo. Her dented exoskeleton showed no sign of recent maintenance.

He swung the laser welder about and cut through her legs. New air joined that from the docking tube in a mad rush to exhaust into space. From behind him, Leanne fired her anti-personnel laser to cut off the antenna.

They moved forward together as a unit, each knowing what had to be and how to support the other. Cletus accepted that some of this coordination came from the exos being electronically joined, but the majority of the fighting was done by the occupants and trusting to their partner.

“Six,” Leanne said. “How many have you taken out?”

“That many. The last two weren’t in exos or spacesuits. We breach the hatch onto the bridge and the ship is ours.”

He powered up his left arm, grabbed the locking mechanism and pulled. With the exo augmenting his strength, he ripped away the hatch. Air rushed toward him, but not in the tempest he expected. That meant others in the crew had repaired the leak in the docking tube or had closed their airlock.

“I get nothing but readings for auto repair units. The only survivors are on the bridge.”

Cletus had discovered this himself as he stepped into the ship’s small cockpit. A woman with captain’s insignia and a man who looked like a weasel both fired laserifles into his chest. The exo’s armor deflected the blast, giving him time to jump to one side out of the line of fire. The exoskeleton gave him both strength and speed to raise his left hand and fire the laser mounted there before they could react.

“Good shooting,” Leanne said. “You got both of them.”

“Watch the corridor.” Cletus dropped into the captain’s chair and brought the HUD into full display. It took several minutes before he sank back.

“The crew is dead,” he finally said. “Only there’s something odd about this ship. It’s not from the Babylonian fleet.”

“It has the proper configuration, but I see what you mean. There are modifications I don’t understand.”

“It’s a pirate ship. We boarded a pirate ship and eliminated its crew.” Cletus touched the comlink inside his helmet and worked until he contacted the Shillelagh through one cleaned sensor pod at the ship’s circumference. He quickly explained what had happened.

“Where is the other ship? There were two,” his father asked.

“It’s standing off, waiting for orders. The captain of this ship was in command of both vessels.”

“Get back to the airlock and--”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, sir. Leanne and I have one prize. We can take another.”

“Don’t risk it. The Shillelagh can take the brunt of an attack.”

Cletus switched to a tight bam cast with Leanne and said, “How many sensors did you clean off on the Shillelagh’s lasers?”

“Not many. The dreadnought is still vulnerable.”

Even as Leanne told him what he already knew, Cletus worked on the HUD and sent a partial distress signal to the other pirate ship.

“That will lure them closer. In a few minutes, I’ll send another asking for pickup on two suits--us.”

“You have done well,” Leanne said. “Let them invent their own reasons for what went wrong here. The more you communicate, the greater the chance of warning them away.”

“Here they come. Let’s get to the emergency airlock aft.”

“It is too small for both of us in the exos.” Leanne showed her bulk by turning about and banging into fixed instrument panels on the tiny bridge. Even being careful, the exo destroyed some of the equipment. “I’ll go first. When they open their outer airlock door, I’ll fire a rocket directly in and blow open the inner hatch.”

“I can do it. There’s the risk they will shoot at anything they don’t recognize, and these exos are top of the line compared with the one I cut up when I entered the docking tube.”

“I am a better shot with the rockets. If you don’t have a line-of-sight shot with a laser, you won’t breach the airlock and the element of surprise will be gone.”

“Go on,” Cletus said reluctantly. She knew the exoskeleton operation better than he did, and the few rockets they carried were small and more anti-personnel than designed for attacking solid structures. He wished he had the warbot wrapped around him now. “I’m on the way after I shut down this ship’s power.”

“Send a microburst to the Shillelagh and have a boarding party strip the vessel. There is no reason it can’t serve us. They were thieves and murderers, after all, and their spoils should go to a good cause.”

“Us,” Cletus said, smiling.

He finished the shutdown procedure and swung about, bulling his way through the small cockpit and down the corridor. The emergency airlock was located on the far side of the ship. He stepped over more than one dead pirate. Every body reinforced his belief this wasn’t a military vessel. No two were dressed alike and their armament, those who carried any, ran the gamut from ridiculously small to laserifles capable of blowing open an airlock.

“Ready.” Leanne squeezed into the emergency airlock and flashed a single beam toward the approaching gunboat. “They are coming in, thinking they are rescuing us.”

Cletus started to wish her luck. There was no call to do that. Her fighting prowess matched his own, except in the areas where she was more highly trained. Again, he wished for the warbots. The huge robotic fighting device felt right to him, an extension of his arm and brain. Given more practice, he knew he could match or exceed her skill. The ship shuddered as the airlock opened and spewed Leanne across the gap between.

Cletus wasted no time closing the exterior airlock door and crowding in to follow her. He wanted to leave the low pressure throughout the gunboat to aid the Shillelagh crew in their looting of useful equipment and supplies. The cycle completed, he shoved into the airlock and immediately opened the exterior to follow Leanne. He shot across the space in time to see a feathery trail dart from her exo and head dead center of the opened airlock. The explosion was as horrifying as it was gratifying.

By the time he reached the portal, Leanne had entered the ship. He saw reflected glare of a firing laser.

“You need help?”

“I have taken the bridge. All are dead.”

“Then I’ll move on to the engine compartment and clean up there.”

Cletus found himself floating when the artificial gravity cut off. With a deft twist and judicious use of his jump jets, he arrowed along the corridor to a closed hatch leading to the engine compartment. As he approached, he fired his laser. The carbon composite portal vaporized, and he burst through. He grabbed a stanchion inside the hatch, swung about and used a bit more of the power in the exo’s legs to come to a halt. It took a few seconds for him to jack into the engineering system.

“The engines are cold. I’ve shut them down. It’ll take a couple hours to cycle them back to useful levels.”

“There is a logbook showing these two ships are hijacking two or three cargo ships a month. They are quite good at piracy, and the Babylonians cannot locate them.”

“They must have an informant source at the docks to let them know which ships are worth taking and what their schedules are. Any notation who that is?”

“It is not our concern.”

“We can let the Babylonians know. Think of the havoc these two gunboats must have caused. Without trade, most planets would suffer.”

“Your terraforming lacks attention to detail,” she said.

“Unlike Far Kingdom?” Cletus grew angry at the implication Babylon-—or Ballymore--needed off-world trade or it would suffer. They had struggled to remake the planet during the Great Farewell when entire nations had built ships and Lifted for planets to escape the carnage of their home world. “You were lucky to have a more receptive planet, one almost perfect. Ballymore still requires--”

“I have contacted the Programmer General and salvage crews are on the way. He wants to Lift from this system in two hours.”

Cletus stifled angry outburst by turning off his radio. He should have reported to his father, not Leanne. And the plans for the ships and eventual departure should have been given to him first. The Far Kingdom envoy overstepped her authority. He became even angrier when he remembered that she had no authority. She was only an observer. He was Commander in Chief Armed Forces.

He made a second pass through, checking the panels to guarantee no trouble for the boarding party. The thought that his crew were the looters sobered him. The Shillelagh was hardly better than the pirates who preyed on helpless cargo vessels.

He worked his way along the corridor to the airlock, considered returning directly to the Shillelagh by himself, then waited impatiently. Leanne came up, pressed close and magnetically linked.

“Race you back to the ship,” she said, her tone light and almost joking.

She applied her jet before Cletus could answer. They circled the other pirate gunboat, saw the swarm-covered expanse of the Shillelagh’s hull and then dropped into the airlock. Crew members nodded to them as they left to ransack the pirate vessels. As Cletus stepped into the Shillelagh, his knees buckled slightly. He corrected using the exo’s power to counter the artificial gravity. Adaptation to zero-g came quickly for him. Returning to normal acceleration required concentration.

He and Leanne stripped off their exoskeletons. He lingered to instruct two of the cargo bay crew how to burn off any of the swarm contaminating the suits, then went to the command deck where Leanne spoke earnestly with Donal. Seeing the two of them scheming, leaving him out of the planning, caused a rush of irritation. He strode forward and spoke to Captain Sullivan.

“Have the boarding crews light up the engines and use the exhaust to wash down our hull. With two gunboats working, we ought to have our hull cleaned much faster than sending crew out with laser welders.”

“Right away, sir.” Bridget Sullivan pulled on haptic gloves, reached out and moved through the HUD, replaceing the right layers to relay his orders.

“That’s a good idea, Cletus. I want to leave this system as soon as possible when the engines are ready to take maximum power.” Donal Tomlins dropped the auxiliary control helmet into its cradle and rubbed his eyes. He looked ten years older. Seeing his son studying him, he said, “Don’t worry. I’m only tired. The stress has worn me down more than I expected. That and these helmets suck more from me than the Blarney Stone.”

“You are used to having the master computer to carry out your orders,” Leanne said. “While capable, the one aboard this ship is primitive in comparison.”

“It is that,” Donal said.

“Father, with the evidence aboard the two ships, we can alert Babylon Space Command and track down the pirate’s base. This will give us entry to their planetary controller. With such assistance, it will be a matter of time before we can refit the Shillelagh and return to Ballymore.”

“If we went back now, we wouldn’t stand much of a chance, son.”

“But with the help of the Babylonians, we--”

“They’re a Class 7 system. Bare subsistence and needing vast amounts of trade goods. Ballymore is a Class 3, almost self-sufficient.”

“You’re saying we can’t get the repairs and upgraded armament here?” Cletus frowned. He had not considered the difference in technologies. Outfitting the Shillelagh with a bows and arrows when they needed rail guns and genius missiles had to be done at a more advanced dry dock. “We can Lift for Far Kingdom.”

“We are a Class 2 world,” Leanne said, “but such a Lift will be dangerous. Do you think Weir by now won’t have sent new envoys to Far Kingdom to cement his position as legitimate ruler?”

“He’ll have declared us outlaws.” Donal nodded in agreement. “To make the Lift will require at least one more stop for recharging since we can’t get everything we need on Babylon. By then, Weir will have sent a half dozen envoys.”

“But you spoke with Supreme Leader, and he knows you.” Cletus knew he argued against himself. Far Kingdom acted in whatever way benefitted Far Kingdom. Trade with Burran was important but not worth getting caught in a civil war between a deposed Programmer General and the man who currently controlled the Burran government.

“This is our problem, son. And we can deal with Weir if the Shillelagh is in top fighting prime.”

“Become pirates, disrupt trade, put pressure on Weir and create civil unrest. Make his position precarious.” Leanne sounded as if she recited a litany of how to destroy a planet’s economy. Cripple Burran and the other nations would die a lingering death. Before that, Eire and Uller would wage war on Burran.

“He deserves to be executed for treason, but this will put incredible hardship on our citizens.”

“Cletus, your concern for the people does you justice, but we have no allies unless we arouse our own populace. Then Weir cannot succeed and will be toppled from power, him and all his cabal.”

“If we can’t go to Far Kingdom and Babylon is no good, where do we go?”

Donal smiled crookedly. “Not everything is in the master computer. There is one place loyal to me that can give us all we need--and more. Much more. It requires a fully functional, powered Lift drive.”

“Lift to commence when the swarm is burned away, Programmer General.” The captain sat back in her chair, looking as strained as Donal Tomlins. “I’ve never seen these coordinates before. Is there even a star system there?”

“Oh, yes, there is. A decidedly different one.” Donal quickly blanked the coordinates and set himself to the solitary task of preparing for the Lift.

Leanne nudged Cletus and took him aside to whisper, “Let’s go to my quarters.”

“Yours? Why? We need to be certain everything is ready for the Lift to wherever we’re going.”

“My quarters now, if you want to collect your reward for such outstanding field service.”

“Reward?” Cletus looked into the woman’s dancing eyes and understood.

They were together when the Shillelagh Lifted. The sensation of a woman’s naked skin against his, moving slowly, feeling her responses build and then the mind-twisting StringSpaceLift made him wonder why he hadn’t experienced this before. Then he realized he had never met a woman quite like Leanne Chang before, and that explained everything.